Organizer and Chair: Harumi Befu, Kyoto Bunkyo University
Discussant: Saya S. Shiraishi, Kyoto Bunkyo University
Globalization concept has been receiving increasing attention (Appadurai, Featherstone, etc.). Their attention, however, has been by and large to the globalization of the West. Though they claim their models to be universal, scantiness of cases from Asia suggests bias in their theorizing. Accordingly this panel will take up Japan and Hong Kong—two major Asian centers of globalization. Moreover, it will consider the interaction of these two centers as each reaches out globally.
More specifically, in this panel, two papers will consider the influence of Hong Kong popular culture on Japan and two, the influence of Japanese popular culture on Hong Kong. Two papers report on how popular music in each area accept either in toto or through adaptation of the music and lyrics of the other. One paper will examine the process of diffusion of Japanese comics in Hong Kong and its selective adaptation by Hong Kongese. The fourth paper is on "filtering" Hong Kong culture in the process of the use of the internet and homepage as a means of bringing Hong Kong culture to Japan. Since the internet is one of the major means of globalization process, this paper adds a new dimension to the panel.
In the end, the panel will: (1) use the Japanese and Hong Kong case as basis to discuss global spread of Japanese and Hong Kongese popular culture; and (2) ask how these cases could contribute toward constructing an unbiased theory of globalization.
Satohiro Serizawa, Nara University
In this presentation, two patterns of domestication of Hong Kong culture for Japanese people are shown through the data based on interviews with young Japanese who enjoy contemporary Hong Kong popular culture and publications for them in Japanese. Recently many young people in Japan enjoy the Cantonese films and popular songs. Therefore my focus is upon them. Ideally, young Japanese who enjoy Hong Kong culture now can be divided into three types. These three reflect three stages of their understanding of Hong Kong popular culture. At the first stage, they start to enjoy one element of Hong Kong entertainment. Their interest in Hong Kong is thus partial. At the second stage, they become interested in the whole parts of Hong Kong culture. They start to learn Cantonese in Japan and sometimes go to Hong Kong. They make friends with other Japanese people who like Hong Kong and with Hong Kong people of the same generation. Through these two stages, the domestication of Hong Kong culture is accomplished in their lives. At the last stage, two patterns can be traced. In one pattern, Hong Kong culture encompasses their whole lives. As a result of their marriage with a Hong Kong people, their leaving for Hong Kong for working, or their getting a job relating to Hong Kong in Japan, their relations with Hong Kong are turned into ordinary ones. In the other pattern, the sophistication of Hong Kong culture as a hobby is seen. Their interest in Hong Kong culture becomes restricted and their relations with Hong Kong special. Young Japanese choose only one pattern between these two strategically.
Heung Wah Wong, University of Hong Kong
This paper examines the process in which Japanese comic books were introduced into the Hong Kong market. I will investigate the impact of Japanese comic books on the Hong Kong comics market in particular and on Hong Kong society in general. Perhaps more challenging is to show how the Hong Kong comic industry, the socio-cultural context of Hong Kong, and other structural factors orchestrated such impact, and even constrained the configuration of the importation of Japanese comic books into Hong Kong.
I will first trace the history of local comics, pointing out that violence has been the dominant theme of local comics. Such a theme helped develop a bad image of local comics within Hong Kong society: comics were exclusively for lower class schoolboys who fail in school and for those laborers who dropped out of the school. I then show how this bad image of local comics shaped the strategy adopted by local publishers to market Japanese comics to Hong Kong, arguing that they chose to avoid importing violent Japanese comics but not soft young girls comics. Such Japanese young girls comics were found very successful in attracting teenage schoolgirls and even university female students. Thanks to these young girls comics, the Hong Kong comics market grew rapidly. I will then show how, in the early 1990s—taking advantage of this—several publishing companies were established to import more Japanese comic books, including famous comics such as Tokyo Love Story, Black Jack, and Tezuka Osamu’s comic series. They were considered as ‘healthy’ and with ‘educational values.’ The import of such comics started to change the attitude of Hong Kong society towards comics, and such change, in turn facilitated the further growth of Hong Kong comics market.
Theoretically, this scenario also speaks to a series of analytical issues such as structure and agency, individual and society; history and structure, and so on, that continue to vex many anthropologists interested in the anthropology of history.
Ellis Lau, Kyoto University
This presentation discusses the effects of Internet development on experiencing Hong Kong culture in cyberspace. Focus of study is posed on the formation process of a cyber group related to Hong Kong. Unlike traditional mass media, Internet allows individuals to make their own choices of information and enables interactive communication with information source. Also, individuals can become information providers as well. In light of this development, three effects can be observed in this study.
Firstly, people are free to have direct access to information in which they are interested without any screening as in traditional mass media. It may help them to deepen and diversify their understanding of Hong Kong. Secondly, they may define and present to others their own image of Hong Kong. Their roles as passive information receivers will be changed to active one as information givers. Thirdly, their interests in Hong Kong culture can be reinforced by participating in discussion with their counterparts in cyberspace.
The target of the study is a cyber-group composed of more than 110 Japanese-speaking people who are interested in Hong Kong. Its activities are mainly discussions via mailing list and irregular off-line meetings. Members who volunteer to operate the mailing list and websites become the centre of the group. The rest of the members can be stratified by their proximity to Hong Kong and their computer skills. Those who are living or travel to Hong Kong frequently and good at computers become opinion leaders of the group.
Masashi Ogawa, University of Hong Kong
In recent decades, products of Japanese popular culture in Hong Kong have become widespread. In particular in popular music scene, Japanese popular music has been taking a very significant role since 1970s. However the role of Japanese music has varied in different periods. By focusing on these different roles in the past two decades, this paper will examine how Japanese and Hong Kong popular cultures spontaneously influenced each other and how the two cultures were integrated to one culture. To examine this process of encounter, negotiation and integration between the two cultures, the paper will investigate how Japanese pop songs were introduced and re-packaged (in advertisement, arrangement of music, change of lyrics, etc.).
For the above purpose this paper will first analyze the history of Hong Kong popular music.
Secondly the paper will examine several Japanese singers and their songs which are popular in Japan but not in Hong Kong. These will be compared with Japanese singers and songs which are popular in both countries. By doing so, I will show the images of song or singer Hong Kong popular music industry was trying to convey to pop song listeners in Hong Kong by importing Japanese songs or employing musical element of Japanese songs. To contrast, this problem will be approached by comparing it with the image that the Japanese music industry was projecting for particular singers or songs.
With the above findings the universality and peculiarity of the global-local cultural relation in Japan-Hong Kong popular cultural context will be considered.